I've always believed that there are 3 possibilities when recruiting: 1) You find a candidate. 2) If they turn you down then they can become a Centre of Influence (COI). 3) If you treat people well in the recruiting process then prospective candidates or COIs can become a client.
Never Forget Your 3 Options!
Undoubtedly, we cannot deny that recruitment is a people business and our role to find suitable candidates that will fit the jobs we have open with the company. Obviously, we try very hard to hire the right one in the recruitment process, but sometimes the right one gets away on us and we were not able to land them in the career. So often I ask recruiters what do you do in these situations where great candidates turn you down? Often, they say that they are in such a time crunch to fill the role that they need to move on quickly to the next candidate. While I understand this dilemma, I must also remind recruiters of what we are trying to accomplish, which is we are also trying to build our unique network of people so that we can draw upon it for referrals at any given time.
My suggestion for recruiters is take that small moment of this time in the recruitment process when you get rejected to try and stay connect with these candidates. One of the main reasons for doing this is they can become a Centre of Influence in your network to provide referrals. Second, at some later stage in their career they may end up looking for another opportunity and your company might be top of mind again because you stayed engaged. This is just good people practices in how we should interact and treat candidates in the hiring process whether they accept the job or not. Plus, we also want to maintain a connection with these candidates to increase your pipeline of potential referrals to other candidates in the future.
Candidates Can Become Customers
Remember when you treat people well in the recruitment process then you just never know, that at some point, they may have a need for your services or products as a client. We must always have the foresight to treat people well at all points in the recruitment process because you never know you might end up with a candidate, a new Centre of Influence or a new customer/client.
Contact us to learn more how to build this process into your recruitment function.
